- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
Russia has moved to classify key demographic statistics following a dramatic collapse in its birth rate, which has plunged to levels not seen since the late 18th or early 19th century, according to a leading Russian demographer.
For decades, Russia has been experiencing a plunging birth rate and population decline, which appears to have worsened amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine—with high casualty rates and men fleeing the country to avoid being conscripted to fight.
Projections estimate that Russia’s population will fall to about 132 million in the next two decades. The United Nations has predicted that in a worst-case scenario, by the start of the next century, Russia’s population could almost halve to 83 million.
That’s not unique to Russia. Birth rates in developed nations have been plummeting across the board. The only reason the US was escaping it and hanging out around replacement was because of immigration, and, well, I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with the news lately, but it seems like that’s going to change.
There’s lots of reasons driving demographic collapse, but I don’t think war is one of them. South Korea is usually heralded as the shining example of demographic collapse because their birth rate is the worst by far, and it generally seems to be the case that as economies becomes more “advanced”, women have less time and supports to focus on motherhood, and so just choose not to have kids. I put advanced in scare quotes because it seems to me that a truly advanced economy wouldn’t footgun itself with rapid demographic collapse. Not to say that the trend shouldn’t be towards a smaller population that will tax the Earth’s resources less, but the way to get there safely for civilization isn’t by falling off a cliff.
Other countries also have the problems with the birth rates, but Putin is accelerating that. Murdering and crippling his young men in a senseless war. Keeping millions of men in the army away from home, far away from their girlfriends. Pushing people to leave the country, if they can. The problem might be there without Putin, but the war is making it so much worse
Russia has a unique problem, and it is war. Just not the war in Ukraine by itself.
WWII was absolutely devastating to the Soviet Union’s population. Tons of “excess females”, which means there were so many men killed that women could not find a husband. The baby boom did not happen there; kinda the opposite. This affects both modern Russia and Ukraine.
Every 20 years or so, there is an “echo” of that loss in their population pyramid. It’s a drop in
birth ratesnew births from a relative lack of young adults starting families for part of the cycle. The echo reduces with each cycle, of course, but one of them is hitting right now. Putin is now amplifying that echo by having another war with such high losses.Edit: clarified some wording.
it is somewhat in line what china is doing, making threats of invading taiwan, and the south sea, as a distraction to thier population decline. if they are tyring to boost births now in china, its already a bad sign.
Don’t forget their losses in WWI and the Russian Civil War, both of which occurred in the 20th century as well. Between those 2 events they suffered over 10mill casualties. So combine that with WWII - USSR suffered roughly 25-30mill casualties, I am unsure what % of that was Russian specifically but let’s even play it super safe and say 10mill again (likely way more) - and we’re talking 20-30mill dead in armed conflict over 40 or so years. Then you have Afghanistan, Ukraine, etc. now in the modern era.
I have thought long and hard about having a kid. The only positives are some happy moments, my parents getting a grandbaby, and having someone to help make sure I don’t get taken advantage of when I’m old (I believe it is my financial responsibility to plan for myself but I know my brain may decline). Then I think of the negatives. The money, the loss of sleep, the loss of autonomy, the loss of time, it’s just all so so much. My life would get substantially worse.
Then I think about adopting someone older than a baby, and it’s an interesting idea, I don’t feel a need to spread my genes, but it’s the same thing. Then I think maybe adopt a teenager, it’s not as long of a commitment. But by this point it’s such a nasty equation of tradeoffs and I never want a child to be thought of that way. Plus, I really don’t think I have the heart or patience for adopting an older child.
So the only real thing I feel like I’m missing is having someone to make sure I’m not a victim of elder abuse. I’ll just try to keep getting you get friends and keep them close. I’m 33. My youngest close-ish friend is about 22. If I keep making young people my friends then hopefully if I’m in the nightmare scenario of mental decline and my spouse has passed that one of them can check up on me when we’re both old. That seems less shitty than adopting a child for that reason.
I’m a parent. I’m not going to try and sell you on having a kid; don’t do it unless you know you want to. What I’m about to say isn’t trying to sell you on parenthood or making apologetics, but just sharing my own personal experience having thought of almost all the same things you’ve thought and then crossed the bridge anyway. I figure that parenting really isn’t about what you get out of it, and you do get stuff out of it- the love, the experience, the ups and downs, someone to depend on and who depends on you. In a lot of ways it’s a microcosm of the human social experience in that you much more personally experience the things that make up existing with others in a society. You don’t necessarily need kids the same way you don’t necessarily need a significant other or a circle of friends, it’s just that humans are, by our nature, social creatures, and we’re almost always better off with richer social connections in our life than not. Yeah, you definitely do lose stuff; take autonomy, it’s kind of similar to how you lose a certain degree of autonomy when you get into a serious long term relationship, only you really shouldn’t break up with your kids if they piss you off. If that tradeoff isn’t for you, that’s cool!
Everybody’s different, but my kids have motivated me to get involved in politics (beyond just voting) at the local level and try to start planting trees whose shade I may never get to enjoy. It made me think hard about the kind of world that we’re leaving to them, and about what responsibility I have as a parent to do what I can to make that world a better place. I don’t expect anything from them; if they move away to live their life, that’s fine, I trust them to use their best judgment and live their life how they see fit, and just knowing that they’re depending on us to do everything we can for them has really motivated me to think differently about things in ways that I believe are generally positive. In case you’re curious about it, you could always try hosting an exchange student. It’s about the lowest commitment way to be a parent to someone, especially since they’re typically older teenagers. If you hate their guts, you can always ask the host organization that they be placed elsewhere. I’ve hosted I think eight exchange kids, and in hindsight, I don’t regret a single instance, even for the kids we didn’t get along with and had to place elsewhere.
If you like working with kids, you could become a Big Brother or Big Sister too. They’ll remember you. ❤️
I blame Emmeline Pankhurst!
Well, not really.
“Allowing women to work” turned into “expecting women to work” and is now “two people’s wages are required to have a roof over your head”.
House price and rent caps would be marvellous, but no government is brave enough to shatter the teetering mess of economics that is built on it all. It should never have got to this point, and nobody wants to stop it getting worse. We need to bring the cost of housing down. Build more. Prevent prices rising. Hard caps on rent for basic properties. If not enough basic properties exist in an area, mandate they must be built instead of luxury expensive properties. Bring back council houses.
This might be a good time to pitch looking into joining or starting a local chapter of Strong Towns. They’re a local-first advocacy group rooted in the premise that our cities are broken because we’ve been building them badly for nearly 100 years now. Strong Towns aims to restore cities as places that are built first and foremost for people to live in. As I’ve gotten deeper into this, it’s really shocked me how much of the blame lies nearly exclusively with municipal policy and political inertia (politicians sticking with doing things the established bad way because that’s the established way and they’d rather have a bankrupt, unlivable city than risk changing what they know). The good news is that municipal policy is probably the easiest, most accessible level of policy to effect, and it has the most direct and immediate impact on your life and the lives of people around you. Affecting good urban policy to make our cities livable is what Strong Towns is all about.
You might also look at the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. They’re another local-first group that focuses on all forms of justice for lower-income communities.